Ideas to Improve the Steemit Platform - June 8th Edition

Like many of you, I am relatively new to the Steemit platform, joining just last month. As I have begun to use Steemit, I have had several ideas for how the developers could improve the overall user experience. I am sure many others out in the Steemit-sphere have similar ideas that they would like the developers to consider implementing. Although some of these ideas have likely been already thrown around behind the scenes, I think it would be helpful to have a place where people can suggest ideas in the comments section and get feedback from other users. Popular ideas may even make their way to those that can implement them if they are widely accepted as useful by the community.

Why should whales listen to the minnows??

Some whales and dolphins may ask, why do we care what a bunch of minnows think? They have been using the platform for such a short period of time, how can they possibly have anything useful to offer?

Well, my response would be we are your target audience! For steemit to be successful and become the platform we all know it can be, we need to be able to not only attract new users but more importantly retain those users over the long haul. Individuals like @aggroed that have been working on projects such as the Minnow Support Project understand the importance of getting minnows off the ground so they stick around. @officialfuzzy and whaleshares is another great example. I am sure there are many others, but like I said, I am new so please forgive me if I left others out.

My point here is that minnow concerns should be taken very seriously because if global issues are not addressed then those users are likely to leave and never return.

Ok Einstein, what are your ideas??

I have several ideas, but will only write about one of those ideas in this post. I have learned that as a minnow, putting all your eggs in one basket doesn't get you much ... about 5 views, 2 up votes, and $0.00001. I will save my other ideas for later posts as I assume this will take some time to get off the ground, if it ever does.

One improvement I would like to see made is the limited ability to repost articles as "new". Let me explain.

Someone just starting out on Steemit, which is pretty much all of us, has no followers. We may have some great ideas and we may write the most elegant post, but the lifespan of that post is about 3 sec ... and I don't even think that is an exaggeration. If I am doing this wrong please let me know.

We hit post and for a brief window of time, we are on top of the Steemit world! But then others post and we plummet to the bottom to never be seen again. This is very discouraging to a minnow.

Being able to repost that article as "new" under limiting factors would be helpful I believe. I understand that there needs to be limitations, otherwise people would just spam the same article over and over again. Maybe you can do this once per post, or once per day if you are a minnow. I do not know exactly what the limitations should be. I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

A post today by @furion highlights the importance of this growing problem. Here is a link to that article and the graph I want to discuss.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@furion/steemit-s-community-engagement-is-up-over-1-000

Do you see the problem here? As more people come onto Steemit, the half-life of a minnow post is going to go to zero. That is very discouraging and will likely cause many new users to leave. I believe something needs to be done to help the newest of users. Being able to repost is one approach. There are many others, but like I said, I will save those for another time.

Now let me address what some may be thinking. I know that traditionally it has been a writ of passage for new minnows to grind out the early days to get followers and move up in status. I am not opposed to hard work and the grind. I know many others out there are not afraid to do the work as well. What I am concerned with is the greater majority's willingness to do the same. Ultimately, I believe it is the goal of Steemit to bring as many people on as possible. I think the way to do that is to make it easier for minnows to start getting an early following. That will get them engaged and will help keep them here. More on this later.

What are your ideas??

Please list some of your ideas below to get the conversation started. In the next installment, I will choose some of the ideas that had the most conversation and elaborate on them, giving the original person the credit and a link to their account of course.

I am excited to hear your ideas!!

All up-votes and resteems are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Sepracore